


machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders

by renardroi



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Gun Violence, Jacobi is a Pansexual Mess, Multi, Praise Kink, Transphobia, jacobi and alana are bffs, jacobi does not actually get roofied, the things im warning for are mentioned mostly in passing, there's a lot of sex bc someone said jacobi is a slut and i said oh shit yes, trans Jacobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-27 10:31:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12579752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renardroi/pseuds/renardroi
Summary: after six months of dating, and three fights, they break up. and he falls in love with her as he kisses her thighs for the last time because she makes him promise he'll finish school and he'll only date people who call him by his name. people who respect him.when he agrees, she smiles prettily and says good, and it's like a flower blossoming in his chest but faster, more sudden. a firework or an explosion.





	1. but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master

**Author's Note:**

> this is turned into way more backstory for jacobi than i meant. again most of the stuff that i warned for is mentioned in passing. use ur best judgment and stay safe out there kids.

jacobi falls in love when he's eight years old. with a red and orange hot wheels car, with whitewall tires. he spends three weeks stealing nickels and pennies from his father's wallet, from his older brother's drawer, and from under the couch cushions, and when he returns to his mother's for the second weekend of the month he holds up all the coins in his palms like the small pirate treasure it is. she gives him the most beautiful smile, and they take two buses to get to the toy store.

it's a secret that they keep just between the two of them. every year his mother buys him something useful for christmas - a backpack, shoes - and on his birthday she buys him three hot wheels. and when he's fourteen and asks if they can have another secret, just between the two of them, if she could please call him daniel. she smiles just as beautifully and promises, cross her heart, and she calls him daniel and dan and danny in every sentence while they talk over breakfast.

when he turns sixteen, he takes three buses after school and arrives at his mother's apartment well after dinnertime, and she cries and tells him that everyone's worried sick about him and he pleads with her to let him stay here instead of at dad's. she cries again while she screams herself hoarse, yelling at jacobi's father over the phone for nearly three hours.

afterwards they sit on the couch and he lays his head on her lap and she whispers that she loves him, and that she's proud of him for coming here. he doesn't understand why she's proud until he's much older, and he knows how people are.

 

* * *

 

when he's seventeen he tries to join the airforce, and he tells himself it's out of spite. he's proving a point. he's proving a point. he's proving a point. but it looks like his father gets the last laugh on this one because he comes home empty handed and his mom holds him quietly even though he doesn't tell her where he's been.

 

* * *

 

he falls in love with a book, and then a movie, and then he falls in love with a class, but he doesn't fall in love with a person until he's eighteen and two months. there's a girl he's been dating for half a year. she doesn't call him daniel, but she likes the way he dresses, and she doesn't question the binder, and after a week of covert handholding she tells their friends she's probably not only into girls, maybe boys aren't so bad too. their friends miss the meaning of the statement, but it doesn't matter.

after six months of dating, and three fights, they break up. jacobi swears that long distance could work, and she swears it won't. she knows he doesnt need the kissing and the sex and the sitting on the couch watching movies next to each other as much, but she does, even if she doesn't know how to say that. and he falls in love with her as he kisses her thighs for the last time because she makes him promise he'll finish school and he'll only date people who call him by his name. people who respect him.

when he agrees, she smiles prettily and says _good_ , and it's like a flower blossoming in his chest but faster, more sudden. a firework or an explosion.

 

* * *

 

he gets to university a year and a half late, because he takes some time to have a small breakdown, spends a month and a half going to the psych wing of the hospital every weekday, and after several grueling months he moves to california and legally changes his name and finally finally starts school in the winter quarter. most of the people in his classes are a year younger than him, and he expected that but he didn't expect for them to somehow still feel older than him.

he's nineteen and a half, and the hard-earned friends he has talk about sex and drinking and drugs with a wisdom he doesn't have because the most he's done is sneak a cigarette from the pack his dad kept in the car, and his dad screamed so loud he never looked back. he spent so long trying to be two different people that he hardly ever got to the figuring out what he wanted to be, what he liked, who he liked. all of those things had been accidental before now. he liked the music his mom and his friends listened to, he liked the girl that liked him first, he liked the idea of being a boy and now that he was here he was glad and he was happy but he still had so much to figure out.

by the end of his first year he's changed his hairstyle three times, read twenty-four novels, went to countless parties, and dated a boy who played guitar. he loves chemistry, he doesn't like math but he's good at it, he hates history but guitar boy loves it so it's not too bad really. drinking is really, really nice after they break up, and he's starting to be good at it, smoking makes him nauseous no matter what.

three weeks after the break-up he tries one night stands and falls in love with a boy that waxes poetic about his ass, and his legs, and how pretty his mouth looks with a cock in it, but most important is that he tells jacobi how good he is. he loves that stranger in an inexplicable way, but it's a one night stand so he keeps that love in his back pocket and falls in love with more strangers. he loves the girl with curly brown hair that calls him a good boy four times, the grad student that puts him in a collar and calls him pet every night for a week, and the person with long fingers who whispers sweetly into his ear while they have their hands around his throat.

he chases the praise like a high, with his classwork, and his internship, and the sex. the sex is good when he can find it, after his night classes, wandering through gay bars and taking the bartender's recommendations because he's still trying new drinks. he falls in love with the bars, the cheap alcohol, and all of the people. he loves the bars even after some girl flirting with him looks disgusted when she finds out he doesn't have a dick, loves them even after the bartender pulls him aside and tells him his drink was dosed and offers to call the police and buys him a cab home when he declines, and loves them even after he has too many shots and goes home with three people a decade older than him.

he finishes his internship, he graduates, he keeps studying, a friend of a friend gets him a job in R&D and he's nervous and worried at first but he's good at his job and he knows it, and his boss knows it and tells him so. he preens and flourishes under the praise. he gets promotions, new jobs, but he's always good at it. he's very good at it.

 

* * *

 

 

until he's not.


	2. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the time Jacobi "finishes" his training he's been working for Goddard Futuristics for over a year and a half, he's broken two fingers, three ribs, both bones in his right arm, and he's been bruised and burned to hell and back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops this is 3 parts now my bad

2009\. it's an accident. being fired hurts of course but the blow to his ego is what really makes him stumble. he stumbles and stops loving his classes and the people he goes home with, after a year of unemployment his mother dies suddenly and he falls - stops loving bars and stays home, where he can drink until he passes out and doesn't have to worry about getting a ride back to his apartment.

he doesn't remember most of 2010 and several months of 2011, and he shouldn't remember the second anniversary of the accident but he does. he's not supposed to love bars anymore but a tall man with long eyelashes buys him an expensive drink and he's been drinking watered down piss for two years. he's not supposed to fall in love with strangers but this man - he quotes something, probably shakespeare, and jacobi barely catches the meaning of it but he can feel the hair on his arms and neck stand up as soon as he hears the word _master_.

he manages to get out a very intelligent _what_  before the man changes the subject. it doesn't matter. the rest of the conversation is a blur, but jacobi pockets the business card and calls the number the next day as soon as his head stops hurting.

goddard futuristics saves his life.

 

* * *

 

jacobi works hard to prove himself at goddard, and his mettle is tested frequently. he meets cutter and he's not sure if he wants to blow the man up or if he wants to get on his knees for him, and he regrets considering both in his presence because there's a sudden twinkle in the man's eyes like he knows what jacobi is thinking. he meets alana and she hates jacobi's guts for a whole year, until he does something for her. something small, seemingly insignificant, an act of kindness or helpfulness that he doesn't remember, but she does and she changes her mind about him. he meets kepler, again, and for their second conversation, all jacobi hears is the word master played on repeat in his head.

he falls in love with the training, the instructor that tells him he's picking up on all of this rather quickly, falls in love with the instructor's assistant and her big brown eyes and the way she calls him _babe_ while she's tugging jacobi's shirt off. after they hook up in the shower she knows him a little better, and makes a point when he's at the shooting range and doing well to call him babe again and praise his hard work.

he falls for someone who's probably definitely his superior even if he doesn't work directly under him. jacobi can't resist the way the man stumbles over himself in front of others, and then threatens to ruin him when they're alone. eventually jacobi lays himself out on the man's desk and forces him to make good on that threat. he calls jacobi a multitude of curse words - a little bland, but he gets to watch the man singing his praises as he recommends him for a promotion a week later.

the promotion gets hijacked by kepler. jacobi finds out when he shows up to work and the man with the long eyelashes is standing there with a cigarette in his mouth.

" _Mr. Jacobi_ ," kepler says and he's not drunk off his ass on cheap booze this time and the goosebumps jacobi gets are so strong they almost hurt. kepler lets the name hang in the air for a moment before he continues. "Are you enjoying yourself here?"

"what?" jacobi says, just as smartly as he had in the bar.

"Are. You. Enjoying. Yourself?" he steps closer, closer than close enough, and breathes smoke in his face like a deity of flame. jacobi thinks he might be dying but he answers anyways.

"yes." he watches the burning end of the cigarette with as much rapt interest as someone watching a hypnotist's pendulum might have.

"Good."

"good?" jacobi asks, painfully aware of the flush in his face and his neck.

" _Very_ good. You've done well." kepler's mouth turns up in a smug smile. "You work for me now."

jacobi clears his throat carefully and stands up straighter. trying to make sure he's not gaping at kepler like an idiot. it unfortunately doesn't make him any more articulate. all he says is, "okay."

kepler tells him where to report to, speaking a little quicker and much more business-like. but when he finishes he reaches out and puts a hand on jacobi's neck, thumb under his jaw, and tilts jacobi's head back and then to the side like he's inspecting a horse or a dog.

"Finish up whatever projects you're working on, then come find me." a cloud of smoke in his face and then kepler drops his cigarette on the ground and leaves. jacobi cards a shaking hand through his hair, trying to pull himself back together before he goes inside. he takes one last deep breath, puts out the cigarette that kepler has left behind, and walks into the belly of the beast.

 

* * *

 

By the time Jacobi "finishes" his training he's been working for Goddard Futuristics for over a year and a half, he's broken two fingers, three ribs, both bones in his right arm, and he's been bruised and burned to hell and back. Explosives and ballistics he'd known - or at least he'd known how to make them, but since they were pulling for him to get into intelligence he needed to know a lot more than that. He gets pretty good at using a sniper rifle, fighting in close quarters, and slipping cuffs and any other restraints. The last one makes bondage lose a little bit of its sparkle, but it's a good skill to have.

While he's still in training, he works off and on with Maxwell, trying to make intelligent systems and things that go boom mesh in a coherent way. She does not tell him that he's good at his job, because she doesn't have to and because it's a waste of time. Jacobi loves her a little desperately. He's never really had the chance to have a best friend, and he knows - he _knows_ that coworkers aren't really supposed to be your best friends when it comes to Goddard, but no one else is going to listen to him ramble and ramble themselves in turn until 3AM. Maxwell's a good friend and he invites her over on accident because they can't stop talking. They end up in his apartment, and they complain about some bad crime show, until they fall asleep, leaning against each other.

Jacobi is woken up by his alarm shrieking at them all the way from the bedroom, and he offers to make Maxwell breakfast. She seems nervous, regret written on her face and her fingers tapping against her knee, and it breaks his heart just a little because the last thing in the world he wants is Maxwell feeling uncomfortable around him. So before she can turn him down, he very abruptly and tactlessly tells her that he doesn't want to sleep with her.

The relief is not as instantaneous as he'd hoped, maybe because she isn't sure if she believes him, but she takes him up on his offer of breakfast and he makes very bad eggs. A grueling week of uncertainty passes, but then she invites him over to watch TV and things go back to normal. They take turns, one week at his place and the next at hers, and it's so, so nice. He starts to doubt he's ever really had friends before, because they've never been this comfortable. He wants to turn their friendship into a blanket and curl up under it. She borrows his shirts and he steals her coat, on his birthday Maxwell buys him a plant that she swears is nigh unkillable because she's had one for a year now. Jacobi didn't realize how much he liked being touched until she started to link arms and rest her head on his shoulder and lean on him like an annoying older sibling, whenever they were idle. He does what he can to return the affection, but they're both awkward and strange, they both spent most of their lives avoiding regular and casual intimacy at all costs.

 

But they have each other now. 


	3. And the best of me is diligence.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His first field mission with Kepler goes pretty well. The second doesn't.

His first field mission with Kepler goes pretty well. The second doesn't. 

The man moves faster and quieter than it seems like he should, and within five minutes he's abandoned Jacobi, going on ahead while Jacobi tries to hurry and place the bomb that _he_ designed. This wasn't the plan - Kepler is supposed to be watching his back, making sure he doesn't get shot while he works. And of course, because that's just his luck, a guard happens to stumble onto him, but he holds his own and he shoots the guard three times with his silenced pistol. 

Before his blood stops roaring in his ears, he sets the timer on the bomb and flees, trying to catch up to his superior and also trying not to be angry about being left behind. He finds Kepler waiting for him near their exit route, tucking a thumbdrive into his pocket. 

"We should leave." He says, as Jacobi skids to a stop next to him. He looks calm, unshakably so. Even when the guards are bearing down on them he still has the same eerie expression on his face, except his eyebrows are drawn just a little bit closer together in concentration. 

And then Kepler tries to kill him. Jacobi is good at this job, even if he's new to it, so when the guards suddenly round a corner and start shooting indiscriminately he moves toward cover - or starts to, because Kepler's hand is suddenly around his wrist and is yanking him back into the line of fire. The gesture could easily be mistaken for something else, because after a split second Kepler reels him in and presses him against the cabinet he's taking cover behind. But Kepler is not an idiot and Jacobi knows that. His superior is experienced enough to know that Jacobi would have been able to take cover in time. But he stopped him.

As Kepler pulls him behind cover, he feels his shoulder slam into something - the cabinet itself probably. Reflexively, he gasps in shock and tries to reach for his gun, but Kepler pins the wrist he's still holding against the cabinet and boxes him in. He's too close - smells like sweat and cigarettes and some kind of cologne that he must use sparingly. Jacobi's practically straddling the man's leg but he can't be bothered to care because why does his shoulder _still hurt_? And why did he _do that_?

"F - fuck." Even though he's being held up, he feels like he's about to fall over. He can feel the recoil of Kepler's gun, as Jacobi slumps forward, getting faceful of what has to be a very expensive shirt, feels him shooting at the guards in Kepler's chest. 

"Language." Kepler says, and then something else that gets lost in the sound of gunfire. 

Suddenly Kepler backs off, and since it's the only thing keeping him up, Jacobi falls. Each impact rolls painfully through his shoulder, as he drops to his knees, and then his hands as he tries to catch himself, but he's too slow and collapses on the ground. 

"Come now, Mr. Jacobi. Pull yourself together." There's a pause, and then hands pushing him onto his back. "Surely you can do better than _that_."

There's blood on Kepler's shirt - his blood, Jacobi's blood. Didn't bump his shoulder. Shot. Hurts more than he expected. Kepler is kneeling next to him, pulling him by his shirt almost into a sitting position, and then - kissing him? He wishes he could say that he bit Kepler's lip on purpose, but it is an accident. He tries to open his mouth - because he's bleeding and he's an idiot and he likes boys that say nice things - but the pain is bad and he grits his teeth without thinking and there's the taste of blood in his mouth. He falls back again, and catches a glimpse of that same smug smile, but this time with blood smeared through it. 

"Fifteen minutes, Mr. Jacobi." And Kepler disappears. 

Asshole. He's leaving him here? 

For a while, all he can hear is his own heartbeat.

 

He needs to get up. Needs to follow, _again_. Before more people arrive. Jacobi takes a deep breath and swears to himself that he's going to shoot that fucking man himself out of revenge, and then maybe try kissing him again, and that's enough to force himself to get up off the ground and on his feet. Everything gets hazy after that; he recalls the bloodstains he leaves on a wall as he leans against it, the dead bodies that he very carefully steps over, and then stairs. 

 

* * *

 

Cutter very graciously allows Jacobi to do his debrief once he's not in danger of bleeding to death, and can stand without too much trouble. Even so, as he stands in Cutter's office, he feels like his brain is trying to separate in two and then float away, but he's getting the highlights of Kepler's report read to him so he tries to pay attention. 

" 'In summation, Mr. Jacobi was slow, incompetent, and detrimentally uncoordinated.' And then he goes on to detail how your actions could have risked the _entirety_ of the mission for...three paragraphs." Cutter looks far too cheerful as he relays this information to him, hands clasped behind his back and a bright smile on his face. "Why - Daniel, I think he _likes_ you." 

"Likes me, sir?" Jacobi says through his teeth. 

"Yes! Well, you're alive aren't you?"

 

* * *

 

The surge of anger he gets as he leaves Cutter's office is like a shot of adrenaline straight into his vein, and he knows if he goes to Kepler now he's either going to kill him or - more likely - he's going to be killed. So he finds an empty hallway and angrily paces back and forth down the length of it, trying to relax. It doesn't help. He considers shooting Kepler, and then strangling him, and then finding the man's apartment and blowing it up, and it's just making him angrier - because he can't. 

Some hapless idiot stumbles onto the scene by chance, catching him by surprise. The guy looks new, fresh blood, and he approaches Jacobi like he would a growling dog, and very slowly asks if he's alright. 

Jacobi laughs harshly. "Right as rain."

"Are you sure? Because you...sorta seem -" 

"Who are you?" Jacobi asks, glaring down at the stranger, who very nervously starts to ramble. Communications, whatever, whatever, assignment in space, blah, blah. Jacobi doesn't really care, only cares that this stranger is cute, is probably the nicest person working at Goddard Futuristics, and that if it's the last thing he does before his superior kills him he is going to sleep with this man. 

 

* * *

 

Two days later, when he returns from his medical leave much too early, he still has the hickeys on his neck that he'd had to coax the stranger into leaving. Prior to this, he'd never seen Kepler angry - really he'd never seen Kepler angry enough to look angry. It shouldn't be entertaining to watch his boss whiteknuckling the corner of his desk, eyes narrowing at the sight of the small bruises, but it undoubtedly is. Jacobi asks him questions as deadpan as he can, and after a long moment without a response, he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. 

"Something wrong, sir?" He asks innocently. 

Kepler takes a very deep breath and then silently sits down in his chair. Very purposefully, he turns his attention to a file on his desk. "You're dismissed, Mr. Jacobi." 

"Sir?" 

"You're. Dismissed." Without looking up from his work, he says, "You still have two weeks of your leave of absence left, don't you, Mr. Jacobi? Use it. I don't want to see you in my office until _all_ of your injuries are healed, and then I'm sure we can arrange for a celebratory cake to be waiting for you upon your return. How's that sound?" 

"Peachy, sir," Jacobi turns to leave. 

"Oh, and Mr. Jacobi?" He turns back again to see Kepler leaning back in his chair, smiling at him. "Be thankful that you've gotten this particular experience out of the way so early. If you're shot again - on what is perhaps a much more critical mission - it won't be as...surprising."

"Yes, sir." 

He slams the door on the way out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im a little ill and subsequently very very tired so i have no idea if this is good. also if it feels a little rushed it probably is because i cut this short. there was other stuff i wanted to write about but it for real was getting too long. maybe i'll write some kinda sequel later :P


End file.
